Vice Minister Shen Haixiong,

Distinguished guests,

Dear friends,

It gives me great pleasure to attend the “China in Springtime: China’s Development Opportunities for the World” Global Dialogue as spring returns and everything comes alive. The annual two sessions which I attended personally have just concluded. The event this year took place at a key historical juncture, as we work to reinforce the foundations and push forward on all fronts toward realizing socialist modernization. It also occurred while the world comes to another crossroads, facing a critical choice between stability and turbulence.

The most important outcome of the “two sessions” was the adoption of the 15th Five-Year Plan, which maps out the indicators for the main objectives, major strategic tasks, and major projects for China’s national economic and social development in the coming five years. As a member of the CPPCC National Committee, I had the honor to attend the “two sessions” and witness how the Plan ushers in a new journey for Chinese modernization, drawing China’s blueprint for a better future and also providing a list of opportunities for the world. I would like to share with you three thoughts.

First, with its bright prospects becoming more tangible, Chinese modernization will instill certainty and stability into the world. Formulating and implementing Five-Year Plans is an important experience of the Communist Party of China in its governance. We carry out each blueprint to the end, and keep working hard from one generation to the next. This is the key to China’s success, and also a roadmap leading our people to a better life. Through implementing 14 Five-Year Plans consecutively, China has transformed from an impoverished agricultural nation into a major engine of global economic growth.

Opening a new chapter in China’s high-quality development, the 15th Five-Year Plan specifies 20 main indicators, covering areas such as economic development, innovation, public wellbeing, and green and low-carbon development. It sets out major strategic tasks, including pursuing high-quality development, strengthening the domestic economy, and advancing common prosperity for all. It also proposes a total of 109 major projects in areas including steering the development of new quality productive forces. The Plan will therefore empower our drive to pursue Chinese modernization through a key stage, and lay a solid foundation for basically realizing socialist modernization by 2035. In an increasingly unstable and uncertain world, China will be an oasis of certainty and an anchor of stability.

Second, with more robust development momentum, Chinese modernization will continue to provide a main driver for global economic growth. In 2025, the Chinese economy forged ahead against all odds, with the GDP growing by 5%, demonstrating strong resilience. China has entered the top 10 of the Global Innovation Index, and has become the first country to amass over 5 million valid domestic invention patents. At the beginning of 2026, large AI models such as DeepSeek and Seedance keep wowing people. Humanoid robots took the stage at the Spring Festival Gala with a thrilling martial arts performance. The Spring Festival holiday saw a total of 596 million domestic trips, hitting a new high. All these are vivid examples of the diverse drivers of China’s development.

In the coming five years, China will continue to build a robust domestic market, foster new growth drivers at a faster pace, step up efforts to achieve greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology, deepen reform in key areas, accelerate the green transition across the board, develop new quality productive forces in light of local conditions, create new forms of smart economy, and nurture industries of the future such as quantum technology, embodied AI, brain-computer interfaces, and 6G technology. The Chinese economy is becoming greener and of higher quality, and the world’s factory is evolving into a bustling hub of innovation. While trading globally, we are also empowering the world, sharing both our resources and expertise to drive global development and prosperity.

Third, with openness becoming a more defining feature, Chinese modernization unlocks huge development opportunities for all. In 2025, China’s foreign trade grew despite a complex and grave external environment, with exports further diversifying, making China a major trading partner of more than 160 countries and regions across the globe. China’s negative list for foreign investment keeps shortening. The Hainan Free Trade Port has officially launched island-wide special customs operations. The China International Import Expo and the China International Supply Chain Expo attracted more overseas exhibitors and expanded exhibition areas. It has become an international consensus that, choosing China is embracing opportunities, and investing in China is investing in the future.

According to the 15th Five-Year Plan, China will continue to pursue mutually beneficial cooperation, and expand high-standard opening up. We will widen market access and open up more areas, particularly in the service sector. We will further expand opening-up trials for value-added telecom services, biotechnology, wholly foreign-owned hospitals, and other fields, and take well-ordered steps to expand opening up in the digital sector. We will boost imports to promote balanced trade, expand two-way investment cooperation, and ensure national treatment for foreign-funded enterprises. For the world, China’s opening up is not a limited-time Black Friday sale, but a constant and ever-expanding opportunity for mutual benefit.

Chinese modernization is socialist modernization under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. As President Xi Jinping pointed out, “The more effective our Party is in supervising and governing itself, the better it will be able to provide guarantees for our economic and social development.” Currently, the CPC has launched a Party-wide education campaign for establishing and practicing a correct understanding of what it means to perform well. With building the Party for the public good, boosting the people’s wellbeing, promoting sound decision-making, and taking solid steps to deliver outcomes as the overall requirements, the CPC is committed to constantly improving itself and building itself into a better party. This will provide a stronger safeguard for Chinese modernization, and boost the shared development of China and the world too.

Dear friends,

The 15th Five-Year Plan also creates broader space for mutually beneficial cooperation between China and the United States. This year is a “big year” for China-U.S. relations. We will see a series of high-level exchanges, and also respectively host the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting and the G20 Summit. How can we translate these opportunities into tangible outcomes of cooperation? This is a major task for both sides. China is always committed. We hope the U.S. side will work with us in the same direction, foster an enabling atmosphere, manage differences, and promote cooperation. Of course, China has its own principles, and will firmly protect its sovereignty, security and development interests. We believe that, under the strategic guidance of the two Presidents, as long as our two sides adhere to mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, China and the United States will be fully able to find a right way to get along in the new era, and advance the steady, sound and sustainable development of bilateral relations, for the benefit of both our countries and the whole world.

Thank you very much.